Murder by Matchlight

ECR Lorac

"A man who played about on the fringes of the Black Market, who had fought for Sinn Fein, who lived by his wits and who finally became dangerous to somebody and was knocked over the head in the blackout. It may prove to be a sordid story, but I certainly find it an interesting one."

London, 1945. All is dark with the blackout, and the parks are eerie places.

During a stroll through Regent's Park, one November night Bruce Mallaig witnesses two men acting suspiciously around a footbridge. In a matter of moments, one of them coshes the other killing him but Mallaig's sighting of the assailant is but a brief glimpse of a ghastly face in the glow of a struck match.

The murderer's silent approach and escape seems to defy all logic, and even the victim's identity is quickly thrown into uncertainty. The body is identified by his identity card as John Ward, but investigations reveal he is really an Irishman named Timothy O'Farrel who had stolen the identity of another man killed in an air raid some time earlier.

C.I.D. sleuth Chief Inspector Robert MacDonald must get to work once again to crack this near-impossible mystery.